


Reclaim That Shit

by AgentMal, cloudycelebrations



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asexual Steve Rogers, Awesome Sam Wilson, BDSM Scene, Banned Together Bingo 2020, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky loves to overshare, Censorship, Crying, Eating, Fluff, Food, Gay Sam Wilson, HYDRA Trash Party, HYDRA Trash Party adjacent, Humor, Interracial Relationship, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, Kinky, M/M, No Filter, Oral Sex, POV Sam Wilson, POV Steve Rogers, POV Tony Stark, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Abuse, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rape Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Negotiation, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sex Education, Sexual Content, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, no on-screen pain or torture, passive aggression, standard Winter Soldier trauma umbrella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28973907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMal/pseuds/AgentMal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudycelebrations/pseuds/cloudycelebrations
Summary: There are lots of things HYDRA took from Bucky when he was under their power, and now he's taking them back.A collaboration of vignettes in sequence by two authors who love intense reclamation Bucky doing whatever the fuck he wants after escaping from HYDRA.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justanotherStonyfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/gifts).



> This is pretty fluffy for an HTP fic. The other chapters are finished and will be posted regularly. This concept and many ideas within originated from conversation among our excellent fellows at the Hydra Trash Party chat, especially Jasfa. Thank you to @D4tD for beta!
> 
> BTB Squares:  
> Ch 1. Sexy lyrics (Cloudy)  
> Ch 2: none  
> Ch 3: free space: sexy talk (Cloudy)  
> Ch 4: psychedelics (Mal)  
> Ch 5: sex education (Mal)  
> Ch 6: interracial relationships (Mal)  
> Ch 7: kinky sex (Mal)  
> Ch 8: free space: suggestive grinding (Mal)  
> Ch 9: free space: offends censor (Cloudy)

Life in Avengers Tower is interesting when Sam first officially moves in, but he isn’t there, much, to take it in. He’s too busy pursuing a certain missing person case that takes him around the world. But the novelty and peculiarity of technically sharing a residence with the Hulk and a fun-loving, modern industrialist are nothing compared to what it’s like when he starts really living there, after he and Steve have brought Bucky in from the cold. After that, the weird just never stops.

Sam and Steve are sitting at the kitchen table of the common area when Bucky stalks in, takes a carton of milk from the fridge so tightly the corners buckle under his fingers, chugs while holding furious eye contact with Sam, then puts it back, and leaves.

“Isn’t that great?” says Steve wistfully. “He’s eating without getting permission first, choosing his own foods.”

The previous day one of Stark’s personal shoppers had brought a clothes rack in for Bucky and asked him to pick an outfit. Sam and Steve were there, Steve for support and Sam just to see how it would go. Bucky had stood there menacingly, then grabbed a shirt and jeans and _hurled_ them on the bed. His every look dared someone to say something about it. The others left the room as he began to get naked shortly after.

The day before that, Steve had found Bucky running at top speed on the heavy-duty, Avengers-proof treadmills, to the blasting tune of a song he had never heard before. How Bucky had rigged up the entire room to play his music was beyond him. Maybe Jarvis did it? As Steve started to pay attention to the lyrics, he noticed the singer seemed to be naming all the body parts she wanted her paramour to lick. And there were a lot of ...those. It just went on and on. He couldn’t really imagine being in that position but then again, she was describing her instructions in great detail. Steve was blushing by the time Natasha came in. 

“Nice choice, Steve. ‘My neck, my back’, huh? Who knew you’d pick a classic like this one?”

Steve had gestured to Bucky, who was making the treadmill shake furiously back and forth with the pounding steps of his sprinting. 

At one of the first group dinners, Steve had looked confused to come to the table Bucky had set to find that every place had a fork, spoon, and knife except where he normally sat. There, there was just a spoon and fork. 

“You miss something here, pal?” he asked, gesturing to where the knife would be.

“No,” Bucky answered petulantly, glaring at Steve, “I don’t have to arm my handler anymore.”

Steve had to turn to hide his smile, irrepressibly fond. 

As they all ate that evening, Bucky took huge portions of everything and pointedly wolfed it down while making lingering eye contact with anyone who looked twice at him. He often did that, eating aggressively if such a thing was possible. And he did it more the more “nonessential” the foodstuff was. One day Sam came across him sucking down a milkshake as if it had wronged his family’s honor. He was sucking so hard his cheeks were contoured in, which was hilarious paired with his furious furrowed eyebrows. 

Sam kept his reaction internal and merely cheerfully saluted Barnes as he and Steve headed out for their morning run. Steve had a big, goofy smile on his face as he passed Bucky, nodding back approvingly to Bucky’s murder-eyes and gesturing to the milkshake, “Nice!”

On the elevator down, Steve couldn’t keep his own reaction to himself. “Can you believe it? He wasn’t starving himself on the run, but now! His muscle tone is coming in so great, his body’s percentage of fat is rising, getting out of the dangerously low range.” HYDRA had kept their asset far too lean, a situation Steve is now all too happy to see Bucky reverse.

Sam understands it, in fact he understands it probably better than most of the others living in the Avengers levels of Stark Tower. 

It hadn’t been like that for the days before they came to stay here, when Bucky had finally let Steve and Sam find him, and the few days’ travel back to New York. In that first exposure to the real Bucky Barnes, Sam got a sense of how Bucky had been in hiding: contained but self sufficient, wary but unapologetic. He had kept to himself. He had survived. Sam also got a feel for what Bucky and Steve’s friendship was like, neither of them obscuring the deep familiarity and easy collaboration between them, the history, the intense loyalty and love. 

The first week Bucky had been in the Tower, he had been extremely self-contained, hesitant to make eye contact, not speaking unless spoken to, not doing anything without permission or an explicit directive, even missing meals or sleep because it hadn’t been prompted. Sam thinks he was given a glimpse of what Bucky had been like as the compliant asset of HYDRA. Steve said it was just the new location and the unfamiliar people, and probably there was truth to that, because as soon as it had struck home that he was really welcome to make the space his and do as he liked, his behavior made a severe 180.

Now, some days, he'd break into Steve’s apartment and take one huge bite out of everything in the fridge, leaving all the lids off the tupperware containers when he puts them back. Steve can’t stop grinning when he tells Sam about it, and asks JARVIS to email him the footage of Bucky picking the lock so he can save it. He texts Sam a photo of the pie with a fork sticking straight out of it. 

Sam sees that Tony has noticed this development when he video-calls Steve to ask why Jarvis was ordered to turn the temperature in Steve’s floor up to 78°F. 

“I get that it’s summer and parts of the Tower can be over air-conditioned, but isn’t that a bit much, Stars and Bars?”

Steve just smiles down at his phone. “It’s Bucky. I think he used to be cold a lot of the time, on base, as the Winter Soldier. Like how I was into dry saunas for a while after they first got me out of the ice.”

Tony’s eyes go wide, “You had a thing for dry saunas? This is news to me. Do you still go? Do you have people you go with? Do you want to go to a dry sauna together? Do you want your floor to have a dry sauna?”

Steve smiles warmly. “Is the AC thing going to be an issue?” 

Tony looks like he’s already planning a spa outing, or a floor remodel, and answers distractedly, “Uhhhh, no, don’t worry about it. That just seems a little high for a living space.”

Steve chuffs, “I don’t know if it isn’t a little overkill, but possibly he’s flexing his newfound ability to control the environmentals.”

And from what Sam could see, Steve couldn’t be more pleased about it.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not a shock to Sam when more of Bucky’s bodily functions start coming online, even if his brain is not yet catching up. Bucky continues aggressively drinking milk from other people’s cartons, glaring at him and Steve. Only now, there is the addition of tears streaming silently down his face. He doesn’t look sad, exactly, no sniffling or shaking shoulders. He’s just sporting slightly redder eyes and shiny cheeks. The sound of the door slamming and the fridge rocking slightly in his wake are the same as ever.

“He’s emoting!” Steve whispers to Sam. “I think he’s going to be just fine.”

“Fuck off, I can hear you!” Bucky yells from the other room. Sam grins. 

Milk makes him cry, his smartphone makes him cry, and Pixar movies definitely make him cry. He cries into his popcorn and insists it wasn’t salty enough. He proudly marches down the street with Steve, paparazzi bulbs flashing off his tear-streaked face as he grips his grocery bags in one hand and flips them off with the other. 

Days go by and the silent crying turns into loud crying, or crying with strange heaving noises. Steve learns he has an automatic hug-offering reflex upon hearing Bucky hiccuping and sobbing, no matter the intensity of the anger on his face. Bucky rejects the hugs but allows Steve to sit with him and give him water and grapes. 

Of course Natasha finds out and, while sitting across the room from him, texts him adorable animal videos about scruffy shelter dogs getting adopted just to watch the ensuing waterworks with a small smile. 

Bucky whips his head up and leans up from the couch, body almost suspended on his arms. "This is funny to you? What if I'm crying because my arm was ripped off my body? Don’t you know how many innocent people I’ve killed?"

“Which dog is your favorite?” Natasha looks back down at her phone. 

Bucky grunts in Russian, “the spotted one.”


	3. Chapter 3

None of Bucky’s first few days in the Tower can exactly be called ‘normal’, but it’s a normal Friday night when Bucky announces, “Hey Steve, watch this,” and puts his metal fist through a wall in their apartment. 

“Oh! Yeah buddy, I’ve been there before. You’re so strong.” Steve smiles up from his book and goes over to admire the hole while Bucky, nonplussed, wanders into the kitchen. Steve rings Tony, who approves of Bucky’s clear demonstration of independent power and providing new opportunities for remodeling. 

Tony also sounds a little too pleased to be getting a call from Steve this late on a Friday. “Don't you worry, Jarvis told me he already called Jan, our handy-dandy building sub-manager. It'll be good as new in oh, about six hours, she likes night work. Hey, do you need anything else? Maybe I should teach you about ad-blocker; you know those pop-ups can’t really make it grow another three inches, right?” Steve thanks him, hangs up, and goes to find out how else Bucky plans on expressing himself while they wait for Jan. 

It turns out he’s just standing in the kitchen aggressively eating a bowl of Raisin Bran, switching to a new spoon every five bites or so, throwing them one after the other into the sink when he’s decided he needs a new one. Each clattering ricochet in the sink is accompanied by a glare, like he thinks Steve might try to stop him if it gets loud enough. Leaning against the counter, Steve settles in for some innovative performance art by his beloved best friend. 

After four more fist-shaped holes appear in the walls in the following week, Jan starts to make regular appearances in their apartment. She never seems to mind, though, rolling in gladly with her tan overalls and cart full of tools at any hour of the day or night. 

Steve apologizes profusely to Jan when he busts down a door thinking that Bucky’s screaming is for a purpose when he’s actually just testing his vocal chords after so long without speaking more than a sentence. His singing needs some work, but his screams are very convincing. She dismisses Steve’s concerns right away, laughing, "Oh, I don't mind at all! I like my job and I've never been up in the A levels so much! Just between you and me, the overtime pay is stellar.” 

Bucky starts talking a lot more after that. One day when Steve is on the lower levels training with Clint, Bucky makes a matching pair of fist-holes just to see what Jan will say. As usual, Jarvis calls her and she’s happy enough to fix the wall. She even gives Bucky some tips on where to hit next time to cause more overtime-consuming structural damage. 

She’s gathering up her tools and spackle to leave when she says, “Hey, so, this is not necessarily work-appropriate, so you can tell me to buzz off or have Jarvis write me up, but, well. Would you like to get coffee with me sometime? Or I could bring coffee with me next time? You must have so many stories.”

Bucky considers. “Coffee is often an opening romantic volley these days, the conclusion of which is sex, so why don't we skip that and just have sex?”

Jan turns red but smiles shyly, “Uh, I mean, that’s a little quick but yeah, I guess we can do tha-”

Bucky interrupts her, “That's great. The last time I had sex I was forcibly penetrated by three men who used tasers on me if they thought I slacked off at all. Don’t worry, they’re dead now,” he adds as an aside when she gapes in horror. “But it's been a while since I had any help, so do you think you can man a dildo or two, and a taser? ‘Cause I can’t reach that far and do both."

Jan turns a little pale and steps backwards, keeps stepping until she’s out the front door. “I just remembered I have something to fix on floor 43! Gotta go, bye!” 

Bucky shrugs, easy come easy go.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve's had a day, and despite his respect for his colleagues, his idea of perfect company does not include Tony at this juncture. Tony’s been at his side for some time now, going where Steve goes, expositing continuously, occasionally patting his back or gripping his shoulder. Steve can tamp down the hypersensitivity of his ears and skin with effort but Tony's exuberance tests those abilities. Ever the strategist, he deems the Avengers common floor an ideal location to pass Tony off to another available superhero and maybe find Bucky, so he herds Tony in that direction. Even in an enclosed place like the elevator, Tony has a way of puncturing Steve's personal bubble and breathing on him so his neck hairs stand on end. 

"You absolutely have to give it a shot, Cap! Jarvis will give you all the data you need to show that I'm right. I'm so right it shouldn't surprise you anymore." The doors slide apart and Steve immediately recognizes a scent which before this week he hasn't smelled in years, laced in with the smell of Bucky’s favorite shampoo. The lights are dim, and colorful. "Think about it: the shield with a smart feature could be literally called to your arm, like a magnet to your Winter Boytoy, speaking of whom...” He waves his fingers in a dramatic circle. “Why is this still happening?" 

Steve, now savoring the rare taste of verbal silence, surveys the room to see Bucky, lying on his back on the floor, smoking a joint and staring at the ceiling like it's got a novel pasted there. What is there is a projection, right on the ceiling, of a starscape that was slowly but constantly in flux: ringed stars and milky galaxies and colorful nebulae drifting past. It was both fascinating and relaxing. Steve wonders if Jarvis picked it out or if Bucky asked for it. Jarvis is playing him some Sufjan Stevens. Yesterday it was Pink Floyd.

Steve looks fondly down at his friend on the floor. “Contemplating life, Buck?”

Bucky stares for a while before he speaks, looking like he could see the universe expanding on the other side of the ceiling. 

“Life, man…” He doesn’t seem to be addressing Steve. “If they say you should stay a child at heart, then why… why are there no child beds in adult sizes?”

Bemused, Steve continues smiling down on Bucky. “The what?”

“Turns out in the future there are… there are these, these novelty beds for kids. Shaped like planes or... boats. Or the Batmobile.”

Steve discreetly quirks an eyebrow at Tony, who — eyes wide and a smile of his own growing — silently throws up holo projected images in front of them. Bucky must be able to make them out even from the terrible angle below and nods, “Yeah, like that. Doesn’t that look fuckin cool, Stevie?”

Steve is nonplussed, just not quite keeping up, but nevertheless delighted to hear Bucky talking about something totally unrelated to his time with HYDRA. Especially since reefer sometimes has him spiraling in anxiety over it. Though so far it seemed like Bucky is having a nice time on acid, the latest substance he has been experimenting with. Steve knows Bucky had taken some a few hours ago, and he doesn’t know how much shorter the trip would be with Bucky than with normal folks, but apparently he is still well within it. And while Steve is thinking all this, Bucky is still talking.

“...with scales and huge talons, right? But they only… only, they only make them big enough for people... under 4 feet, Steve. Isn’t that... unfair? Grown ups deserve racecar beds, too, Stevie.”

Bucky lapses into silence, but Steve has learned not to assume he’s done.

After a minute he probes, “Guess there’s just not so much demand for the larger version, Buck.” 

“I don’t know why we are... even here right now... if I can’t have a bed shaped like annnnn alien spaceship.”

Tony gets Steve’s attention and in a look conveys, very seriously, that he could absolutely arrange for Bucky to have a bed shaped like a spaceship. Steve returns Tony’s look only with incredulity.

“Steve. Steve. Oh my fucking god, the future is the present now. I can’t... oh shit, I can’t deal with that.” Groaning, Bucky covers his face with his hands.

Tony squints at the floor. "Hey Buckmeister, glad you're loving this space I made, and feel comfortable enough to get your wallow on here, where any of us could come across you, but would you mind if we shove you over and put the coffee table back? We were hoping to do a movie night one of these days, and you've been here all week. I’ll give you a spaceship bed if you move, like, ten feet to your left."

Steve throws Tony a dirty look for even suggesting that Bucky move. "Buck, you take as much time as you need here. it's wonderful that you're processing what you clearly need to process."

Bucky doesn't move except to lower his arms and take another puff, eyes focused in the middle distance. 

"Don't mind Tony, he's just mad that you're not interested in his flashy movies.” Tony coughs too loudly while Steve walks over to Bucky and crouches down. “Do you want a glass of water? Reefer cigarettes used to make you thirsty."

"I'll take a glass of both-of-you-leave-me-alone." Bucky rolls his head towards Steve. "And water, yeah." 

Steve nods warmly at Bucky, even as Bucky lolls his head back toward the ceiling, and starts to head to the kitchen, leaving Tony where he stands, baffled.

Right then, Nat and Sam step out of the elevator and wander in. Bucky doesn't move, doesn’t shift his unfocused gaze from the ceiling, but he and Nat share a brief exchange in Russian. Nat leaves briefly and returns with a sweater in her hand. Then, to Tony’s apparent surprise (Which itself surprises Steve. Why would anyone who knows Nat be surprised at anything she does at this point?) Nat grins and lies down next to Bucky. He delicately passes her the joint. They take turns petting the sweater.

Steve hands the water carefully down to Bucky and is mildly shocked to realize Tony is stunned into silence, clearly not quite equipped to deal with this moment. He can’t quite read Tony’s expression. Is it disbelief? Wholesale inability to digest what he is seeing? 

He takes a guess, asking softly, “Tony. Did you think reefer wasn’t invented yet back in the old days?”

The affronted look Tony gives him is affirmation enough. Steve, enjoying himself, slaps on a Captain-America-sternly-pontificating look, still smiling, and says in a voice to match, “Back in my day, they put cocaine in soda pop and opium in hand cream. Why, the doctors used to prescribe me cigarettes for my asthma!” Only some of that was true, but Steve doesn’t feel bad about the falsehood.

To Tony’s utter inability to respond, Steve leans over, plucks up the joint, takes a nice long drag, then hands it back. He stands back up and conspicuously doesn’t exhale. 

Tony turns to Sam, who he mistakenly sees as the Mature Adult of the room.  
"Samsonite, aren't you going to do something about this?"

"Already did, Jarvis and I got Bucky that purple kush today. Looks like he's seeing the therapeutic benefits.”

Tony looks jerkily between Sam and Steve, who still hasn’t exhaled. If he holds his breath long enough, and holds the smoke in long enough, sometimes he can almost feel the effects. He can never quite get it to be like he remembers from before the serum. 

“Steve?” Tony sounds concerned, “Steve, did you know about this?” 

It’s a silly question to ask, since Steve clearly knows, and Tony is really just asking for Steve to say something and take a breath already. Steve relents, finally exhaling slow and even, before speaking seriously.

“Did you know street pharmacists will bring it to your place on hoverboards now?”

Bucky jumps into the conversation again, “And they have these weird bushy beards. They call ‘em lumberjack beards."

“Oh yeah?” Steve asks.

“Maybe you should grow out a beard like that, Steve-o.”

Smiling ear to ear, Steve goes to get Bucky another glass of water. 

“Maybe I will,” he calls back as he goes.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky doesn’t mind having Sam around, and Sam trusts by now that he would have voiced it if he didn’t, so sometimes they casually work out together. Bucky requests deep chill house from Jarvis — unpleasantly unenergetic music to work out to — probably just to fuck with Sam and see if he’ll say anything. Sam is complimenting Bucky’s burpee form when Bucky jumps back to standing, squinting at Sam. "Is that it, you think I'm hot? You watch me when I work out? Do you wanna fuck me? What if _I_ want to be the one to fuck _you_?"

Sam crosses his arms and nods thoughtfully. "Yeah, I'd be into that if you are."

Bucky leans forward, getting into Sam’s space and raising his voice. "Oh yeah?! What if I want to tie you down and hit you?"

Pursing his lips, Sam keeps nodding. "I mean, with safe, sane, and consensual practice, sure. Like, maybe just your right hand. We just have to talk it all through."

Bucky opens his eyes further, and somehow steps even closer. "What if I want you to hit me?"

“Hey, if you want to, I'm down. We’ll just have to talk it through, gauge things, normal sensible rules.”

Finally, Bucky narrows his eyes, an inch from Sam’s face, his voice dropping low.

"What if I don't want to have sex unless you're choking me and hitting me the whole time?"

Sam just sighs and smiles his easy, open, almost wry smile. In it is acceptance and no pity.

“Yeah,” he breathes gently, so gently, “We can try that.”

And when Bucky recoils at the word _try_ , “try?” Sam continues, “Hey, hey. The things you’re talking about require conversations in advance, negotiations, setting boundaries and expectations,” Sam continues right over Bucky’s look of skepticism, “ _and_ maybe even some good old practical testing and experimenting. But if you commit to the process, on the other side is safe sex that treads those waters you seem to want to dive into. But you don’t need to act like you’re going to scare me off. You’re going to find: I don’t mind getting wet.”

A slow grin slides onto Bucky’s face.

* * *

They talk about how it could go over dinner, then lunch, then dinner and dinner again. Sam’s place, Bucky’s place, the Avengers common room when it was empty, one time on the deserted patio of a cafe. Sam invites Bucky to come with him to a sex shop to see what there is to see and stock up for their purposes. “So this is how it looks for civilians, huh?”

Their conversations start with Sam asking about Bucky’s interests in sex, and the resultant discussions and negotiations, but in the instances when that doesn’t lead to sex, by the end they’re talking about the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster or the most recent Avengers mission, or sports, or anything.

They get in an argument over some detail from the Indiana Jones movies and end up watching all three. Bucky thunks his booted feet on the coffee table and looks around as if daring someone to say something about it. He hogs the popcorn and carelessly spills it, later he slouches and sits wider and wider, his knee and thigh pressing into Sam’s personal space. Before the third movie is over, he’s lounged across the entire couch, including across Sam’s lap.

But Bucky notices that Sam doesn’t react at all to the boots on the table, or to bits of popcorn on the floor and couch and their clothes, or to Bucky encroaching on his personal space and eventually just on his person. And for a second between their peanut gallery banter, it all catches up with Bucky and he suddenly realizes it’s hot, it’s turning him on for some reason. Except that isn’t right, this isn’t arousal, putting it like that is just a reflex, but not an accurate one. For a little while on that couch he doesn’t know how to describe what he’s feeling, this thing rising in him that wasn’t the familiar hotness he’d been reclaiming lately. Sam does get him hot, but that’s not what’s happening now. He reflects on it unhurriedly, letting it resolve into shape: it’s not hot. He feels easy, at ease. Warm.

“Hey,” Bucky says, just after the credits start to roll. He had spent more than a little time toward the end just thinking, his eyes straying to Sam’s face.

Sam turns to look at him, and Bucky lifts his hand tentatively to the side of Sam’s face. Sam smiles in assent and Bucky holds his face as he closes the gap and presses their lips together. Bucky is shocked at the softness of their mouths together, comforting and warm. Bucky feels heat moving up the back of his neck, and he's surprised to discover it's calming.

Withdrawing, he opens his eyes, which he hadn’t thought about closing, and Sam’s smile now has a bit of a smirk.

“What?” Bucky asks, more than a little caught up in everything he’s feeling.

Sam shakes his head, breath coming out in a silent laugh, “It’s just, we’ve had sex like four times, but this is the first time you’ve kissed me.”

Bucky weakly shrugs, “We’ve kissed.”

“Yeah, but only when it was me kissing you. Or you picking up on a cue from me to put your mouth on mine. This is the first time it was purely your idea.”

Bucky isn’t sure what to think of that. “I don’t know why. You got a nice face.”

“Thanks.”

“Here’s an idea,” and he's moving in to kiss Sam again. Before long Bucky’s new warmth is joined by more familiar sensations, “And now I’m getting some more ideas…”


	6. Chapter 6

“I want a blowjob,” Bucky announces, then stands his ground in anticipation of whatever comes next. 

Instead of whatever Bucky expected, Sam’s eyes, crinkled with happiness and locked onto his, fade into a soulful gaze and he lowers to his knees. 

They had heated things up a few times in the days since that confrontation in the gym, fooled around, gotten off together, fucked a few times. But they hadn’t done oral, and are still working toward most of the kink components Bucky is interested in. And Sam has learned that for all Bucky is bold and assertive in other arenas, and even about sex in the hypothetical, he is far less so when it comes to initiating the acts themselves. This declaration is a good sign. 

Sam isn’t one to waste time, especially not with Bucky looking down at him like that. His hands delight in wandering of their own accord, squeezing and savoring the thick muscles on the way up the backs of Bucky’s calves and scratching across his tightly-clothed thighs. He tugs coyly on Bucky’s belt loops and lets his face rub back and forth to its heart’s content across the spot just next to the zipper fly. Bucky can’t see but he’s grinning against the rapidly hardening dick pressed against his nose and cheeks. It gets firmer with each throb and Sam gets that much hungrier to taste it.

“Mmm, this all for me?” Sam speaks directly into Bucky’s crotch, intentionally forcing hot air through the fabric. The way Bucky smells when aroused and the barely-there tremble in his thighs send Sam straight to his happy place. “Go ahead and take these off for me, Bucky.”

When he unzips, Sam shoves his fingers under the tight t-shirt and gets a good grope in, skimming his fingers across that soft flesh above powerful abs, following up with his tongue. They’ve been over this: somehow even after all the years of abuse, Bucky is still ticklish and trusts Sam enough to let him torment him that way. Not just trusts, he _loves_ it, struggling against a feeling so far from pain but not in control at all. Bucky squirms in desperation and moans when Sam wraps both arms around his hips and squeezes, holds tight, makes him stay still. He would love to linger here all day and drive Bucky absolutely wild, but he really can’t wait to get his mouth on that cock. He gives Bucky’s nearly-bared ass a hard slap, pulling away to examine the whole feast in front of him. 

A glance at his face confirms for Sam-- Bucky looks driven mad already. “Need to sit?” Bucky nods so Sam knee-walks him back into a plush chair and finally gives him what he came for. 

Sam loves all the pleasures skin-to-skin contact has to offer, but giving head is near the very top of his favorites list. He's waited for this moment, and knows it's going to be so good. The pants are down around Bucky's thighs; he can't stop his hands from divesting Bucky entirely of his pants and underwear so all that skin is just a breath away. Now that he's finally here, it's too much to ask that he get right to it, though; Bucky's bare inner thighs with their soft hair and lines of muscle are just begging for wet, open-mouthed kisses. He has to grab and massage that sweet fat at the top of Bucky's hips while his mouth makes it over to the dick impatiently straining for him. It doesn't matter how many frustrated noises Bucky is making as he clenches his hands on Sam's head and the back of his neck. Making him feel good is not something Sam wants to rush through, and risk missing out on savoring each bite of this pie? Hell no, now he's taking his damn time.

He gets lost in the sound of Bucky's groans as he kisses the side of his dick without taking it into his mouth yet. A little flick of his tongue here and there, just to hear the soft panting turn into sudden gasps, then a wide, slow swipe from the hairy base right up to the tip. It's so easy to tell that Bucky trusts him not to do anything painful without asking first, and Bucky's not flinching when he changes rhythms. In fact, he's sagging back in relief, eyes almost closed, mouth flushed and hanging open. His thighs alternate between tensed and limp depending on how Sam massages them, but everything else he can see is peak relaxation. So Sam's in heaven, licking and kissing all over that dick. The shaft is so hard, he can barely move the skin around it. And the swollen head is just sinfully soft and pliable, he has to run his wet lips all over it. The sounds Bucky makes when he kisses it again and again, so slowly, so softly, make him grin. He's waiting for the point when Bucky will demand exactly what he wants. And it doesn't take long.

Fabric strains across wood, creaking loudly in Bucky's chair as he squirms. "Sam, come on, you're killin' me."

Sam hums against Bucky's pubic hair, tongue sneaking down to caress where his balls meet his leg. He gives the spot an exaggeratedly loud kiss and looks up. "You need something, you can tell me."

"Suck me, please, Sam."

"Like this?" Sam tongues a ball nearly into his mouth and lightly sucks.

"No, fuck, aughhh!" Bucky's hands make to grab at Sam's head, then he stops short and checks himself, touches gently instead. "My dick, in your mouth, please!"

Well, as much fun as it is to rile him up, that's pretty persuasive. Sam sucks him down and doesn't let up. Moans and sighs of relief rain down on him from Bucky, and Sam knows: he's damn good at this. It's a lot to take in, too much length for this angle, so he wraps a hand loosely, so loosely, around the base. He always loves that part himself; it slides so fucking easily in the wetness alongside his lips, the contrast in texture is perfect. He can amp up the pressure at any time, maybe when Bucky gets more desperate. Temptation calls him to reach down and adjust his cock trying to escape his boxers, crying out to join the fun, but it can wait. Focusing on Bucky, his writhing and shifting in this chair, his obvious effort to keep from accidentally hurting Sam, how he throws his head back when it gets too much, it's all turning him on to the extreme. He gets one hand behind Bucky to squeeze whatever chunk of ass he can grab, pulling Bucky towards him. He always did get "thorough, exceptional attention to detail" on his quarterly work reviews.

Bucky’s sliding down in the chair, ass nearly hanging off, when Sam pulls back and husks, “You look like you need some fingers inside you.” 

Nodding, Bucky winces in pleasure, accentuating his pouting lips in a way Sam wants to devour. Sam leans up for a taste, and Bucky’s legs spread of their own accord. 

They make out sloppily, get up to grab lube and change positions, rearrange and adjust and finally Sam's mouth is blessedly full of cock again. Bucky's moans change dramatically in pitch when Sam starts rubbing the outside of his hole with lube, testing and teasing a finger shallowly in and out like it's their first time. Bucky's told him already about a lot of what he's been through, everything he thinks he likes and so many things he knows he hates, as well as his best guesses on what he can take, but Sam has no interest in testing extremes or coming up against boundaries right now. He's got no intentions other than sucking Bucky's brain out straight through his dick and fingering him into ecstasy, because Bucky asked for it.

And goddamn, he does exactly that.

After, when Bucky is out of breath and fairly wrecked, messy and wet, Sam leans back to enjoy the fruits of his labor, drinking in the sight. 

It’s perfect until Bucky speaks and Sam is reminded how far they still have to go. 

“Now what do I owe you?” His voice is wry, he’s probably trying for flirty, but he doesn’t quite pull it off. 

Sam cringes. He's been having such a good time, and Bucky has clearly been enjoying himself, he hates to intrude on the mood. But he walked into things with Bucky knowing he would hold himself to seize upon every teachable moment. And this is a big one.

“Bucky. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Oh. Well, I meant—”

The thing is, someone else saying that could be saying it in good humor, but Sam has been getting to know Bucky these past weeks and has spent no little amount of time and energy studying him. And he knows what Bucky meant. Bucky is going to deflect now but that won’t change the thinking and the feelings Sam can see are behind his words. He cuts him off, “Listen.”

Sam rarely interrupts Bucky, and dislikes doing so now. Bucky, for all that he can respond very strongly sometimes, merely lapses into silence, staring into space. 

“Listen up,” Sam says, in a more serious but soft tone, and that brings Bucky’s eyes to his. “Sex can be transactional. All number of mutually agreeable interactions can be transactional. That isn’t even inherently wrong, maybe. Depending. But I don’t see what you and me are doing as transactional. Sex doesn’t have to be tit for tat and that’s not how I approach it. As a rule. So you don’t owe me anything. Not like that. And if you ever made me feel good but were only doing it because you felt like you were supposed to, _that_ I would have a problem with.”

Bucky is giving Sam his full attention, his expression having fallen into the cold, intense assassin’s stare that Sam knows has been Bucky’s since long before he was turned into the Winter Soldier. 

“I mean it,” Sam continues, “If I learned — if I even felt like — you were doing something for me because you felt like you were obliged to, outside of your genuine interest, I’d be upset. That would hurt me. I’d much rather you do nothing than something you weren’t feeling.”

After long moments of silence, with Bucky clearly considering this, he quietly says, “But what you just did…”

Sam nods, earnestly, “I did because I wanted to, for its own sake. And I was hot to do it. You think it’s a burden for me to fuck you? Or when you fuck me? That I’m just waiting for when I can get mine? I am in it, _for_ it, every time. None of that was an act. Think about how I was and you’ll know I was in each moment for each moment. And that’s what it’s like for me when it comes to giving head. And that’s what I want for you. Not just with oral, with everything we do.”

Bucky is nodding more and more as Sam speaks, then says, “Yeah, it wasn’t an act. You weren’t doing me a favor. You just… wanted to?”

Sam seizes on that. “Exactly. And in that way, I don’t want you doing me any favors.”

Bucky nods, the kind of significant eye contact passing between them that communicates that Bucky is really hearing Sam, which he knows is what Sam needs. They’ve had enough serious conversations learning about each other by now to have parts of it in shorthand.

“You know, before,” Bucky pauses, and Sam knows he is referring to when he was the Soldier, “some of those who used me wanted to feel like I was into it. Some didn’t care if I was a blank automaton, but some wanted me writhing, begging for it. So I did. I… I got used to it. I don’t know if that means I’m habituated to act like I want it whether I do or not, but it might be… it might be tangled like that for me.”

Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, sliding it affirmatively up to the base of his neck. “It’s okay not to know, and to work through untangling that. That might be an ongoing thing, and it may involve you realizing partway into something that you were on autopilot and aren’t really into it. And that’s okay. When you realize you’re in one of those moments, just stop what’s going on and talk about it.”

Bucky looks at him skeptically. 

“Yeah, even if it might be a frustrating moment for me, or for you. As you work some of that old reflex out of your system it’ll happen less and less. You deserve to know, you and whoever you’re with, what kind of time you’re actually having, instead of whatever kind of time some part of you thinks I want you to be having.”

Bucky is taking everything in silently, and lets the silence and the words settle, eventually sighing. 

Then he nods. Message received. 

“Another thing, though,” he pauses, waiting for Sam to indicate he should continue. “That’s not where I got the, the— 'transactional' mindset. Mostly the handlers in HYDRA didn’t care about instilling a sense of piecemeal debt. I owed them everything anyway, since they owned me, whether or not they did anything for me. No. The trading thing I brought with me from Brooklyn. It was from guys who don’t know each other from Adam, in the clubs or the baths, trading favors. Guys who may not like each other, or find them attractive, or know their names. But we had mutual problems. A mutual, you know, need for discretion. And other shared needs. And trading things wasn’t crass, it wasn’t…”

Sam can see Bucky is having a hard time articulating what he’s thinking, and very cautiously offers, “It wasn’t bad, for all it was impersonal; it was community service.” 

Bucky seizes on that, nodding avidly. “And it wasn’t all cold and handshakes, there could be plenty of good feeling, even romance.”

“I'm not going to knock it,” says Sam, smiling, “But I just want to point out that your accent’s starting to come out the more you talk about Brooklyn.”

That has Bucky smiling wide as anything again. 

Their conversation goes on for quite some time, which doesn’t surprise Sam. There’s a big middle ground between exuberantly doing something because you enjoy it purely for itself, and doing it only for an eventual payback. Lots of that middle ground is healthy and happy enough, and Sam wants to be sure that Bucky both understands that and also understands that Sam wants Bucky to try hard for the end of the spectrum in this early stage. And also that Sam isn’t going to reject Bucky if he missteps in any of this. 

“So you get to blow me but I don’t get to blow you?”

“You can, sure, but I only want you to with the right mindset.”

“And you’re always in the right mindset?”

“I was in a certain mindset when I went down, yeah.”

“But that was out of nowhere. So you just love giving blowjobs?”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but I didn’t do it because I love doing it with anyone. I did it because I love the idea of giving _you_ a blowjob.”

“But that’s ‘cause we’re fucking. Which you apparently enjoy for some fucking reason. Of course you want to maintain me being happy with the situation.” 

“That’s not why I did it.”

“But you just said!”

“That’s not what I said. I said I love the idea of giving you a blowjob. And the reasons are also part of the reasons ‘we’re fucking’ as you so elegantly put it: you’re hot, seeing you get off is hot, making you happy is hot. And beyond my own sexual satisfaction, it gives me personal satisfaction to cause you happiness, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I like you.”

“I like you as a person, and you just did something nice for me, why shouldn’t I want to do something nice for you?”

“No reason at all, that’s in that middle ground I was talking about. For some people, taking that impulse without question and following it through is fine. But here’s the thing…”

The conversation continues, until many minutes later they fall into silence again. 

Bucky continues to think about everything. Sam doesn’t want to belabor this too much with words when clearly Bucky needs time to process, think and reflect, so he straightens himself up and heads to leave, stopping on his way out to kiss Bucky lightly on the head and smile wryly at him, reassuring, “I’ll see you soon.”

He’s made it as far as the street before stopping at the sound of Bucky shouting. Bucky has run out to catch up with him, and is now shouting for all to hear, “Wait! I want to get you off! You're super hot! That sounds great for its own sake!”

People are turning, some scandalized, from just around Sam to halfway down the block. Bucky, meanwhile, looks nothing but earnestly excited.

“I get it, I get it! Come back and let me suck you off, too!” He thankfully lowers his voice from shouting to speaking volume as he nears Sam, “I get it, now. And I want to suck you off for its own sake. That sounds super hot.”

Sam chuckles to himself before responding as Bucky leads him back inside.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony likes it when Bucky breaks rules and violates social norms, actually admires it up to a certain point. Hell, the little fella probably picked it up from Tony’s positive influence, now that he’s a certified role model for baby superhero spider kids and whatnot. But even Tony is less than pleased to see the Winter Soldier has infiltrated his personal lab refrigerator (there was a _code_ ) and left the jar lids off half of the containers within. A stray olive rolls out when he opens the fridge door, which startled the piss out of him, or would have if he weren’t so dehydrated. He picks out an unopened Pedialyte, takes a sip, and pours some of his Monster energy drink into it.

Code-locked lab snacks are supposed to be sacred. The next day, he makes his move during the already-awkward arm maintenance hour. 

“Listen, Bucko,” Tony sighs, “now that I’ve got my hand literally inside your body right now, I am going to ask you a favor. Please put the lids back on my foodstuffs when you consume them in my lab. And you know you can just order more snacks by telling Jarvis, right?”

“You have good taste in snacks and you already picked them out.”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, flattery works, good move. You are absolutely right about my exceptional taste! Next time, lids on jars and I’ll get more snacks for you. But I’m changing the code anyway. And you can tell Jarvis to duplicated my selection in your own fridge. And speaking of snacks, how is Steve doing? You two, y’know, putting this arm to work? Cozying up? Getting busy yet?”

Bucky shrugs, partially dislodging Tony’s delicate tools. “Oh, Steve’s always busy. It’s Sam who likes the arm. He likes how I could fight him off so easily but I let him strap me to a metal chair and beat the shit out of me. I heal so fast, he can do it twice a day if I ask! It’s very cozy.” 

Tony splutters, which — unfortunately for Tony — Bucky misinterprets.

“No, no, it’s all negotiated. We had to work up to it and everything. Sam drives a hard bargain with his insistence on ‘discussions’ and ‘previously established boundaries’ and all that, but it’s worth it how that man gets me off. And how hot it is to get him off. Speaking of, I’ve been meaning to ask you about an insertion-safe glove for the arm, that won’t be cut by the plates as they shift. When HYDRA had me fisting people, it was mostly as punishment for them, so it wasn’t as much of an issue that it could pinch.”

“Oh. Oh god. I can’t.” Tony bends down and rests his hands on his knees, the air whooshing out of his lungs. “Why did you just... Jarvis, can I erase that memory? Oh shit, I’m not a computer.”

“Well, shit, I thought you asked.”

After a minute Bucky snorts and shoves Tony upright. “Pal, I know all about getting memories erased and let me tell you, it’s MUCH more fun to have Sam electrocute me than when HYDRA did it. At least now I can remember the dick I get before it. And I don’t have to say ‘please’ so many times.” 

“Um. Bucky Bear. How...” Tony snaps his fingers decisively. “Okay, I need both a bucket of brain bleach and way more details.”

Bucky looks at him with narrowed eyes, and Tony can’t tell if the look is skeptical or considering or what.

“The stuff with HYDRA or the stuff with Sam?”

“Great Cerean Circuits- both? But start with Sam. Details. Now. Out with it.”

Tony gets details. 

After that, Tony gets a large bottle of cognac and sips until it’s gone. Bucky wanders off with a lazy wave from his newly improved arm. 

And after that, Tony calls it a night and gets his eight hours for the first time in years. 

The next morning, he opens his lab fridge to find all the jars properly lidded. He grins until the realization hits that only his Ironman suit glove will be able to get the lids off without breaking the jars.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pinup artist referenced is McClelland Barclay, and you can see some of his work here.
> 
> Chapter-specific content warnings: mentions of past noncon, discussion of consensual sexual activity, asexual revelations, mentions of past f/f and m/f, discussions of a threesome

Steve is in the gym, working on weights, while Bucky and Sam are just at the tail end of a round in the boxing ring. He’s not specifically keeping an eye on them, but now and again part of their conversation catches his ear, or their movement catches his eye.

Then something draws Steve’s attention sharply over— are they talking about sex?

They’ve moved onto the sparring mats outside the ring, and Bucky is detailing a specific hold, and his words definitely include references to sex. Steve looks away, on one hand not wanting to eavesdrop, on the other hand, his heightened hearing is now unwillingly attuned to every word.

“The trick is to get the angle of the forearm right, to allow leverage for your hips to move. Again, this wasn’t common since they had restraints to hold me down, or each other, when they wanted to fuck someone who was pinned down.”

Steve reels, turning suddenly away. Lord, they aren’t talking about sex, they’re talking about things Bucky had gone through while he was in captivity. Steve knows a little about what Bucky suffered at the hands of HYDRA. Hell, anyone who spends more than 10 minutes with him knows something, his pal doesn’t exactly keep it to himself, and Steve’s heard more than most. Still, he’s far enough away that Bucky probably thinks his words are only between him and Sam. Steve tries not to listen, tries to hum to himself or clang the plates to disrupt his hearing, but still catches words or phrases that make it through. His mind fills in the blanks with horrible scenarios that he tries not to picture.

He doesn’t even realize he’s stopped his exercise, or that he’s hunching further and further over, flinching at this or that word, until Sam suddenly calls over, “Steve? You okay?”

Steve straightens, takes a breath, then turns around to face them across the gym. “I’m fine,” he tries to sound nonchalant, and it’s clear from both their faces that he’s not convincing.

“Come’ere,” Bucky demands, and Steve of course would never refuse him anything he asked for directly. Steve’s still so happy every time Buck asserts himself, doesn’t hide what he wants, even pushes his weight around.

When he’s ambled over, he finds he’s trying not to come off as feeling guilty, though he definitely does.

“So you caught some of that?” asks Sam, evenly.

Steve is about to respond but Bucky cuts him off, reading Steve’s answer off his face, “Does it offend your sensibilities to hear about any of that?” Bucky asks with this hard, incredulous look on his face, like he can’t imagine Steve with any such sensibilities.

Steve can’t help but notice Sam looks something like mildly impressed, hanging back a step and watching Bucky, and Steve doesn’t have any chance to wonder at that when Bucky suddenly breaks his hard stare to turn and ask Sam, “So like that?”

Sam laughs a little, “Yeah, like that.” And then to Steve, “A point that’s come up in our talks about consent, kink and boundaries: respecting boundaries by checking in with people whose boundaries you might have rubbed against without their consent. Which includes people in public spaces who might hear or see more than they are prepared to if _someone_ insists on not being discreet.”

“Oh, huh...” begins Steve.

“Well, does it?” Buck follows up immediately, relentless.

Steve looks back at them, Buck staring hard, Sam easy and open. He answers, “It didn’t offend me. I just wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me overhearing... something private.” He smartly doesn’t supply what he thought he’d been overhearing.

Buck shrugs, careless, “Not that private, Stevie, the files on my ‘handling’ are all over the internet.”

Not to mention Bucky can share it pretty freely at times.

“But! Knowing someone knows something about you in the abstract isn’t always the same as them overhearing you talk about it in person. Steve is concerned by the possibility of breaching your or my boundaries when it comes to our privacy. He doesn’t know your level of consent to his overhearing,” Sam is explaining like it is a convenient case study in the topic of the day, and Steve supposes it is, but with it happening while Steve is still standing there, he kinda feels--

“Well, now he knows! So _he’s_ not offended and _I’m_ not offended, and he knows I’m not offended and we know _he’s_ not offended. Everyone’s checked everyone’s boundaries in this instance. So can you please try this hold again? I’m still not convinced you have it down.”

Steve would take a step back at the sudden gear change, would even beat a retreat to where he’s been working out, when Bucky again interrupts his thoughts before he can form them.

“Steve! Do you mind being me? It’ll be easier to correct Sam’s form on the hold if I’m not the one he’s holding,” Those last words are said with a little touch of innuendo, and Buck elbows Steve genially as he says it, and for a moment Steve is back in France, 1945, surrounded by the Howlies, and it could have been any of them elbowing him as they traded dirty jokes or (early on) tried to get Steve to blush. Any of them except Bucky, who knew Steve wasn’t the wholesome ignoramus his public image led soldiers to believe.

The sudden sense memory is strong, unexpected, and hits his emotions like he wouldn’t have guessed. It isn’t so strong as to prick his eyes with moisture, but it’s a near thing. He suddenly wants to look at a picture of the team, to go visit Morita again, and Peggy for that matter. He wants to hug Bucky to him and hold him close.

He smiles affably back almost immediately (he’d gotten good at recovering from those moments quickly in the months after he was defrosted) and says, “I don’t mind at all.”

He spreads his arms in invitation and turns to Sam.

Sam looks at him for a moment, reading him, then gently says, “Okay, man,” and steps up to him.

* * *

Two minutes later, Steve is pinned to the ground, knees spread, with Sam’s hips braced against his clothed backside, and Bucky offers a comment here or reaching to adjust a positioning there. Steve doesn’t know what he expected. He hasn’t thought about what it means to let himself be put in a hold designed to make him vulnerable in this particular way. He probably should feel uncomfortable, or… like it means something? Like it should threaten to mean something that he then self-confidently sets aside. But it doesn’t conjure up any of that, whatever he thinks he’s supposed to be experiencing and overcoming.

Sam has checked Steve’s comfort with the progression of things several times already, getting them into this position, and Steve is happy to maintain that he is okay with it. When Sam gets the hold locked in, he chuckles for a second, breath warm on Steve’s neck, muttering to himself some comment about how wild his life is.

“Still okay?” asks Sam again when he’s gotten a hold of himself.

And the thing is, Steve _is_ okay. He’s so entirely unmoved that it makes him second guess things. Sam is obviously concerned, checking and re-checking, like surely Steve should be disturbed or uncomfortable or _something_. But Steve doesn’t feel like anything, it doesn’t _mean_ anything. The package pressing against him, shifting as Bucky has Sam correct his position, threatens neither danger nor titillation. And it makes Steve wonder, of all the sorts of things Sam is concerned about it potentially meaning to Steve, if any of them are things he’s supposed to be feeling and isn’t.

“Yeah,” Steve says at last, and it must come out a little off, because Sam asks again. Maybe Steve was trying a little too hard to sound okay?

“You sure?”

Steve notices that Sam is saying it in a tone intended to sound chummy and not intimate. Is Sam worried Steve might think Sam has the hots for him? Or be using him in some way? Steve couldn’t be worried about that less, he trusts Sam’s intentions with absolute certainty. But he worries that if he brings it up to say so, he’ll be causing more concern than he’s resolving.

“Yeah, Sam,” Steve definitely comes off sounding harder than intended, like he’s annoyed, but he isn’t. He’s pleased that Sam is so concerned, so alert, so desirous of being careful with him. He redirects in what he hopes is a softer tone, “So are you doing this to process when it was happening to you, Buck?” It’s kind of direct, but Steve knows Bucky doesn’t mind.

“You could say that,” says Sam, ambiguously.

“It’s for Sam to use on me ‘in the bedroom,’ pal,” Bucky says, doing air quotes at “in the bedroom.”

Sam tenses slightly, looking keenly at Steve and clearly ready to back off, but Steve stops him worrying with an honest laugh, “Is Sam trying to get you to say ‘in the bedroom’ in public, instead of whatever you’d naturally say?”

“He is,” says Sam wryly, still eyeing Steve.

“So how’s he doing?” Steve asks Bucky, gesturing to himself, the hold.

Bucky immediately refocuses on correcting Sam’s positioning. Sam, for his part, follows Steve’s lead and doesn’t ask him if he’s okay anymore.

So this isn’t just a hold that was used for assaulting Bucky in his Winter Soldier days, this is a hold Bucky wants Sam to use on him for sex now. Steve is in a sexual position to help his friends with their sex. Sam’s hips grinding against his is a pantomime of the same situation with Bucky in his place, and with them having sex. There’s a slight thrill in that, that Steve tries to interrogate even as it’s occurring to him.

It takes a few minutes of practice, in which Bucky has them both stand up and then watches Sam take Steve into the hold a few times, getting it smoother, locking in faster. The thrill isn’t arousal, even with Sam grinding against him pretty suggestively in the course of things. But then Steve finally gets it: he feels included, trusted, a part of things. He feels good about helping his people with something they’ll enjoy.

Still crushed against Sam’s weight, Steve strains his head up to get a look at Bucky and how he’s taking this, and sees nothing but joy on his face, in the form of an expression others might take for surly concentration. Catching Steve looking, Bucky waggles his eyebrows down at Steve and Sam. “A guy could get used to this view.”

“Bucky,” says Sam, patiently.

“I’m just saying, you two want to try it again without shirts (or other things), that wouldn’t be a hardship for me.”

“Are you not at all concerned about your friend being uncomfortable with you sexualizing him?”

“No,” says Bucky, flatly.

“I don’t mind,” Steve puts in.

“He really doesn’t,” says Bucky, “didn’t back in the 40s either, or the 30s, not when it was me. Okay, I think you’ve got it.”

At that, Sam lets go of Steve and gets up, giving him a hand up as well. He considers Steve more shrewdly than anytime so far. “Bucky, can you walk to the other end of the gym for a minute?”

Bucky throws his hands up and goes without resistance. As soon as he’s out of an average person’s earshot, Sam says for only Steve to hear, “Steve. Are you attracted to Bucky?”

Steve holds himself back from laughing, since Sam looks so serious, but it’s a near thing. “He’s my best friend, and I absolutely love him, but I’ve never thought of him that way.”

“He hasn’t,” Bucky shouts from across the gym.

“These motherf-ing supersoldiers with their motherf-ing superhearing,” Sam mutters to himself before calling to Bucky, “You can come back over.”

“That was real polite of you to check, though,” Steve says.

“Yeah, you had to be sure we weren’t throwing ourselves in Steve’s face, making him sad I was with you and not him,” Bucky adds as he comes back over.

“Well,” says Sam, “Even so, we probably shouldn’t be discussing our sex life too candidly in front of him, or in front of people generally, for their sakes.”

“Uh huh,” says Bucky, as if he’s clearly not really listening.

“You two aren’t exactly subtle about getting down in ways that call back to stuff Bucky’s been through,” Steve ventures.

“Did you just say ‘getting down,’ grandpa?” Sam asks, distracted momentarily.

“Again, we don’t have to worry about,” he gestures, looking for the word, “ _scandalizing_ him,” Bucky repeats, “This is something people used to get wrong about him during the war, or even when he was little.”

“He means when I was short, not when I was a kid. And seriously, that's great, what you guys get up to, if it's great for you. I’m not uncomfortable hearing about it.” As far as he could find in himself, he was just curious.

“You really mean that, huh, Steve?”

“If anything, I just... guess I wonder how that works.”

Bucky laughs and jokingly says, “Well, you're welcome to come see for yourself some time.”

A strange moment passes over all three of them in which Bucky and Sam pause, because Steve is clearly seriously taken with the idea, if not saying anything more.

Bucky looks to Sam now and again to gauge his assent, then lays it out. “You really could join us some time, to see what it is we get up to.”

Steve hesitates for only a second. “I mean, I’m interested now that you bring it up, but I, uh, wasn’t thinking about it before. So I don’t really know what to say.”

Sam nods. "Well, if Bucky thinks it’s okay, I’m comfortable revealing that I think it would be okay. Would you like to join us? To just watch, or participate in some form, whatever."

“No, or well, maybe.” Steve looks conflicted, glancing between the two of them. “I don't know either way, and I definitely haven’t thought of you that way before, either of you. Is that okay?”

At this there’s a slew of questions in multiple directions, in curiosity, probing possible scenarios, checking and confirming each person’s position about all this. Steve bears it all easily, and is mostly just very, very excited.

“So you’re not attracted to either of us, but you’re really okay with hanging out with us while we have sex, maybe kinky sex, maybe even participating?”

“More than okay, I’m enthused.”

“He’s _hyped!_ ” Bucky contributes. Did that come from a reference to a hypodermic needle? Some part of Steve’s mind wonders.

“Yeah. What he said. I’m hyped.”

“And you’re comfortable with us objectifying you while you’re there, for our literal sexual gratification?” Sam looks like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing.

“Oh yeah, that sounds like fun.” He used to let the girls from his old stage show do that all the time. They’d ask him if he’d wear this, or pose like that, or say things, while they were in love piles. Sometimes when even strewn across him. It was nice to be included, to not be seen as a threat or an intrusion, and it was nice to help them out. He certainly wasn’t getting any use out of his body looking like a McClelland Barclay pinup, someone might as well. When he was glad handing after shows and a woman pinched his butt or a man squeezed his bicep, it felt intrusive and unwelcome, but he could never feel like that when it was the women on tour with him. He knew them, was fond of them, and they only did it after they knew he didn’t mind.

It occurs to Steve that maybe Sam will feel more comfortable with Steve’s disposition if he knows this isn’t the first time for him, for something like this, and tells him about the times with the show girls.

“Wait a second. So you’d stand around naked while these women had sex with each other, so they could look at you while they went at it?”

“Well, more like I’d lounge around naked, half naked, part-covered in sheets, various outfits…”

“And you didn’t have sex with them?”

“Not, uh, intercourse. One time Bette had her legs across mine, and she took my hand to finger herself with. That probably counts nowadays.” These days all kinds of things count as sex.

“You fingered her?”

“I mean, sure, I let her, and she gave me some direction, but it was mostly her hand on my wrist, uh, directing the action. I wasn’t exactly meant to take the initiative, which suited me fine.”

“I’m sorry, it _suited you fine???_ ” The more Steve clarifies, the more Sam seems to find incomprehensible.

Steve just shrugs.

“Did you beat off while this was going on, any of the times?”

“No!” Steve is scandalized for the first time in that gym, “I wasn’t there for that.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “You mean, these women didn’t invite you with their intention of you getting to use the situation sexually like they did? Or it wasn’t of interest to you?”

“Uh… both?” Some of them would have slept with him if he’d let them, but for some of them he thought he was only welcome because he was so clearly not interested in them that way. He says as much to Sam.

“That was the point. I was safe, for them.”

“Okay. Okay, okay. Okay, Steve, this might be real intrusive, even rude, so please tell me to back off if you feel that, but did you find any of them attractive?”

“Oh sure, they were all beautiful, they had to be to get in the show.”

“No, I mean— did you ever feel the impulse to have sex with them? Did them getting it on turn you on? Did them having sex or using you for mutual masterbation purposes get you going?”

Steve doesn’t know what Sam’s after. He shrugs, “No?”

Sam takes a breath. Sam walks several steps away, pauses, then comes back. He looks like he’s about to speak, then stops himself. Steve looks to Bucky, who trades a shrug and a look of “I don’t know either, pal,” with him.

At last Sam says, “Steve. Have you ever found someone sexually attractive? Have you ever wanted to have sex with someone?”

“Hey, now,” says Bucky, brow furrowed and leaning between Sam and Steve, “Steve was going to marry Peggy.”

“I was,” says Steve, “And that would have included sex and kids and a house and all of that. And I wanted all that with Peggy.” He wanted to give her everything. She deserved the world, and he had wanted to be the one to give it to her. He’s just grateful that when he wasn’t there, she made her own life and spent all the years he was in ice living the hell out of it.

“And have you ever been attracted to anyone else?”

“Before her, no one would look twice at me, and after her, I was here,” Steve gestures around to indicate the present. And Sam knows how it’s been for Steve since being defrosted.

Sam looks like he isn’t satisfied, “Well, again, please push back if this is intrusive or rude, you do not need to answer, but with everything else we’ve just been talking about I feel like if there was ever a time it was implied to be fair game—”

“What!” Steve interrupts.

“When you knew Peggy, in the war, when you fell for her and made these plans for afterward. Did you find her sexy? Did you want to have sex with her?”

“Well she was a looker, if that’s what you mean.”

“It isn’t. I don’t mean was she sexy objectively or to people in general, I mean was she sexually appealing for you? Did you want to have sex with her beyond it being part of a holistic idea of life after the war? In any more immediate sense?”

Steve looks at Sam and would open his mouth to answer, except he doesn’t know what to say.

Huh. This stumps him. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

“I’m sorry, forget I asked,” Sam starts to hedge, but Steve comes back immediately.

“No, it’s fine. Really.”

Steve looks at Bucky, and Bucky turns from Steve to Sam and says, “Steve’s not like that.”

Sam’s looking from Bucky to Steve, looking even more put out than before, “What.”

“Steve,” Bucky gestures up and down Steve while looking at Sam, “He isn’t… lecherous. Like not at all. He fucks people _as a friend_.”

“Steve,” Sam whispers, then gets a hold of himself and asks, “You’re asexual?”

“I’m a what?”

“He’s _not_ a sexual. He’s an artist.”

Steve laughs at that, “Good one, Buck.”

“Thanks, pal.”

Sam has put his hands to his face and is muttering to himself unintelligibly.

When he comes up he asks, “Have you ever heard of the term ‘asexual’, Steve?”

“No?”

“Ohhhhh kay. Okay. Well. This wasn’t the conversation I was here to have, and in fact it can happen later. For now all I need to know is that, Lord where even were we,” Sam asks that last bit to himself, “Are you comfortable with us sexualizing you for our pleasure, even if you only watch, on this potential threesome adventure we were discussing several revelations ago?”

Steve looks at Bucky, to trade a slight eye roll, then back at Sam, “I am.”

“Well, then you should definitely join us when we have sex later. Because if you don’t mind me saying, you are hot, and you watching sounds hot, and you participating to any degree definitely sounds hot.”

* * *

“I bet he’d help if we asked him,” Bucky says later, when Sam and he are alone. Sam doesn’t know what to do about these supersoldiers. It’s like they want him to spontaneously combust.

“During the sex, I mean. Tonight. I bet if I asked him to hold me down while you were railing me, so I couldn’t get away, he would.”

What an idea. It lights a fire in Sam’s blood and is clearly doing wonders for Bucky, by the look of him.

“You mean, while you lie on your back and I’m on top of you,” Sam asks coyly, “Steve could be leaning over your head, pressing down your shoulders? Or with his arms around your torso? Or drawing your arms above your head, pressing down on each of your wrists?”

Bucky hums a swallowed moan and comes behind Sam, wrapping his hands around his waist, “You know when we talked about spitroasting, how you said you might be interested? Think you could take it from 2 nonagenarians?”

“Uhhh,” Sam does remember that, and the idea of getting double teamed by Steve and Bucky is absolutely doing things for Sam, but the prospect that that fantasy could be reality is a little much. Something that would only ever be a fantasy has less baggage.

“Picture it,” Bucky says softly, sultry, right into Sam’s ear, nuzzling his neck and the back of his head, “I could be behind you,” and he accents this with a little grinding on Sam’s ass, “And Steve could be fucking your throat. He’s got a beautiful dick.”

Sam can’t let himself get too turned on, they’re about to head to dinner. They have somewhere to be. Bucky possibly mistakes his silence for skepticism.

“Don’t believe me? You’ll see his dick soon enough. Well, he might not undress on his own, but he will when we ask him. He’s real obliging like that.”

“Okay,” Sam says, in a tone of voice that means stop, “I either need to get off and then get myself back into shape to go out, or you need to stop talking right now.”


	9. Chapter 9

Declaring brunch to be the ideal post-threesome activity, Sam takes both of them out to a place draped with canvas overhangs and ample patio seating open to the sidewalk. Bucky orders the most expensive item on the menu and loudly slaps the menu closed. They’re midway into their second round of umbrella drinks when Steve hears over his shoulder, way too close: "Sergeant Barnes, how are you adjusting to modern freedom?" and Steve immediately groans inside as the gray fuzz of a microphone boom pops into his field of vision. Steve scoots his wrought-iron chair back to get away from it. The gutter press, at it again.

Bucky responds immediately, "Good question. It’s been great to be spared those little indignities that used to plague me. You know, they used to make me watch my own torture videos, how about that? This one time, I pissed myself watching me piss myself!" He takes a huge mouthful of smoked salmon eggs benedict on toast and says, "Eh aye, uh, thorry, I thoulmt thalk wiv my mouf full."

Sam lowers his sunglasses by half an inch. “Excuse me, we’re brunching right now. Could you please reach out to the Avengers’ PR team for a statement?” Bucky looks back and forth between them, chewing his food thoughtfully with his mouth open. A little Hollandaise gathers on the corner of his mouth.

"But Sergeant Barnes, won't you give us a personal statement about your recovery, you’re an example for other traumatized vets!"

Bucky smacks his lips and swallows. "Let’s wait for the footage to leak of me mid-gang bang begging to be plugged by each HYDRA dick, bleeding and crying, and then tell me who I’m supposed to be an example for, huh? But yeah, I guess I’d say my morale is doing fine, wouldn’t you, Sam? It sure is dandy not to be killing people anymore. That’s my recommendation to the vets: stop killing people on orders and you’ll start feeling much better, just like me. You can kindly fuck off now."

Steve of course has been beaming at him through the whole thing. “You’re doing so great, Bucky.”

Sipping his mimosa, Sam nods. The reporter stares at his camera operator and mutters in disbelief, “We really can’t use this.”

* * *

It’s only one day later that Bucky is required to attend a meeting with the Avengers’ public relations specialist. Tony bribes him with snacks and Sam tells him he’d better go. Steve sits in on the meeting because the memory of trusted colleagues turning out to be undercover HYDRA operatives torturing his lover is still a bit fresh. Also he really adores the smell of Bucky’s shampoo and for no other reason is glued to his side whenever possible. They take their seats in plushy chairs with straight, stylish backs and face the elevator music.

The PR specialist folds her hands on top of her dark wooden desk and thanks them both for coming. She is older, calm and professional when Bucky, after being asked how he is doing today, overshares in detail about how thoroughly he mowed down HYDRA agents in his months before coming to live at the Tower and that today he feels like doing the same again soon. “You do have an impressive history, Sergeant Barnes. Now that you’ve come so far, would you like to share more about your life with the public?”

Bucky folds his arms firmly. “No.”

She nods. “That’s all right. My role here is to help manage your image and the public’s perception of your interactions with the other Avengers. Public support of the Avengers Initiative is key to your missions’ continued success. Both readers and reporters enjoy hearing about superheroes’ daily lives and how you are not so different from common people. For an easy example, what would you say you like to do best with your new team?”

“Fuck Sam and eat Steve's food,” Bucky announces. Steve radiates pride in his direction.

She jots down a few notes on her pad of paper, then looks back up at him. “Thank you for sharing that with me. Would you like to say more about your experience living in the Tower?”

“No.” Bucky stares at her, then visibly ponders. “I also eat Tony’s food.”

“I understand. I think what I’m hearing you say is you don’t want to publicize much information with the media. Your privacy is important to you, and we can help you manage that. Meanwhile, could you please share with me a little more about what happened yesterday as you, Captain Rogers, and Mr. Wilson were eating lunch--”

“Brunch,” Bucky deadpans.

“Yes, while you were eating brunch and uninvited reporters came up to you.” She crosses and uncrosses her legs under her desk.

“I don’t feel like it,” Bucky states. Steve gives him an encouraging nod and a nudge, and Bucky sighs. “I was feeling pretty good yesterday, out with my guys and having some mimosas. They showed up and got in Steve’s bubble so I answered their questions. Then they didn’t leave and they kept asking more, so I told them the truth.”

“I see. Press workers like that are looking for candid shots and off-the-cuff interviews with famous individuals, to show that you have simple things in common with the average person, like going out to eat with friends. To keep the media on our side, unfortunately I must advise you not to tell reporters to ‘fuck off’ or give them a middle finger anymore.”

“You’re right, that is unfortunate.” At that moment, a memory slapped Steve in the forehead of Bucky exactly as he was at 17, doling out sarcasm disguised as politeness like it was caramel candy at Christmas. Everyone got some whether they wanted it or not: the nosy neighbor lady asking why he hadn’t found a nice girl to settle down with, the aunt lecturing him about his scuffed Sunday shoes, and the landlord judging him for crumpled bills. Sometimes Bucky laid it out so sweetly that they didn’t even notice he was ridiculing them.

She folds her hands on top of her desk. "On my end, we can do our best to keep reputable reporters away from you in public spaces. It may be difficult, but we need you to assume best intentions of other reporters if you do encounter them."

Bucky nods. "Okay, I will assume that they can kill me as quickly as I could kill them."

“You know, Bucky has a point here.” Steve sits up taller. “He still has a lot on his plate these days and we’re not like other people, not really. How many everyday people get frozen and thawed to carry out kill lists for decades?” Bucky nods along at his unpalatability. “Superheroes like us are not normal and relatable.”

“Well, we talked to Dr. Banner and despite his challenges, we managed to put together a cohesive image of him for the public to digest, and shortly after, the Times ran a fascinating article about the Avengers’ interaction with the scientific community.”

“That’s true, ma’am, but you didn’t talk to the Hulk. Dr. Banner may not mention it in his interview, but he definitely turns into a giant green baby whenever a loud noise goes off around him.”

“Yes, thank you for that reminder. I guess what I’m trying to convey is, for the Avengers Initiative to succeed, the public shouldn’t be scared of you.”

Bucky grips the arms of his chair. “Damn right they should be afraid of me! That’s just logic. Their enemies should be afraid of me too and piss themselves at night about what I could do to them. The Winter Soldier was a robot psychopath and I was him for longer than your parents have been alive, so maybe the public should find someone else to read about.”

She pauses, nods at them in silence, and stands up. “Thank you, Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers. You’ve given me a lot to consider. It really has been nice meeting with you, and I think this is a good place to stop for today.”

They go out for thick chocolate malted milkshakes afterwards and walk around. Bucky lets Steve put an arm around him and squeeze him a little.

“You did really great back there, Buck. I know I tell you a lot, but I’m so proud of you.”

“Hm,” Bucky sucks on his straw harder than necessary. “Yeah, I agree.”


End file.
